Rap Music as Medicine

The sound of rap music already entertains
millions. In the future, it could save the
lives of thousands.

Babak Ziaie, a professor of electrical and
computer engineering and biomedical
engineering, is harnessing rap’s driving
bass rhythms to power a new type of
miniature medical sensor, with potential
applications ranging from monitoring
incontinence to treating aneurysms.

Cochlear implants are engineering
marvels, but they come at a cost — a
hefty price tag, a lengthy training period,
and the chance that the implants either
won’t work or will destroy remaining
hearing in the implanted ear.

Donna Fekete, a professor of biological
sciences, wants to give people with
hearing loss other options, and she’s
looking to zebrafish, chicken and mice
for some answers. From her laboratory in
Lilly Hall, she studies the molecular basis
of inner ear development in these three
model organisms.

Using direct injection into one-celledzebrafish embryos, Fekete and herteam observed that anoverexpression of particularmicroRNAs in zebrafish caused theformation of too many hair cells, thesensory receptors for the auditorysystem. When microRNAs wererepressed, too few hair cells developed.

Once hair cells are gone, they can’t beregenerated in mammals like us. SoFekete is examining whether thesespecial microRNAs can be combinedwith a known hair-cell promoting gene,Atonal- 1, to grow new hair cells in mice.The genes are delivered via viruses intothe supporting cells, which remain whenhair cells disappear. “If we could findexactly what would stimulate those haircells to grow, the restoration ofhearing might be much closer tonormal than a cochlear implant,”she says. | A.R.